Ocoee To Save Money On Zoning Map

OCOEE — City officials, afraid Ocoee might have to pay up to $80,000 to update its zoning map, were relieved to hear the city will get a bargain.

Ocoee commissioners happily approved a deal with Orlando, Orange County and Baymont Inc. of Clearwater this month that will result in a new map for the city for $28,000 or less.

''We spent all these hours and days worrying about how we were going to get this done and now this,'' Mayor Lester Dabbs said after City Engineer Jim Shira outlined the deal at a meeting recently.

City officials thought they were going to have to pay a consultant to do the work from scratch, until Baymont said it could easily include Ocoee in its project for the county and Orlando.

''Unbelievable, isn't it?'' City Manager Ellis Shapiro said, adding that no other company could bid the service at the same low price because Baymont is already working on the county's project.

In February, commissioners were resigned to shelling out taxpayers' money when they were told the city did not have an official map to keep track of new boundaries. What made things worse was the sheer number of rezonings and annexations - about 200 - since the last official map was adopted by the City Commission in 1983.

Zoning maps are the city's official record of land uses and property boundaries. Ocoee updated its map in October 1988, but the City Commission never approved it. The city could be losing tax revenues if some changes and annexations were recorded improperly.

The county and Orlando contracted with Baymont in 1986 to use tax assessors' maps to create electronic records called a Geographic Information System. Baymont will send the information on Ocoee to the county, which will then print out full-color maps for the city, because the city does not have the equipment to do so. Shira expects to have the maps within 90 days.

Baymont has completed about 90 percent of its map work on the Ocoee area, but that does not include zoning for the city, he said.

''By us keeping them apprised of changes the (tax) assessor has immediate access'' and updated information for tax rolls, Shira said.

Ocoee could eventually buy the necessary hardware and software so city employees would be able to punch information in from their desks at City Hall.